Did you miss us? Our break was followed immediately by NAMM and NAB, and we were swamped—all the news for the week can be found on our NAB page, along with videos from the show floor. Time to get to the new stuff. Only a few weeks after the Inspire 3 was released, DJI surprised us with another major drone announcement: the Mavic 3 Pro. The Mavic 3 Pro takes the original Mavic 3 and gives the tele camera array a big boost to image quality. Additionally, Teenage Engineering continues to grow its line, with the CM-15 Field Microphone.
DJI improves tele cameras, with the Mavic 3 Pro
While the Mavic 3 was a clear winner for DJI with massive improvement to the camera system, there were still some gripes about the 162mm equivalent telephoto lens’s quality―so much so that DJI released the Mavic 3 Classic with only the high-end 24mm equivalent lens with Four Thirds sensor. The desire for telephoto remained, however, and what followed in its wake is the Mavic 3 Pro, with three cameras, one of which is a brand-new telephoto option.
If you’ve seen one Mavic 3 series drone, you’ve seen them all. The only key difference is the camera system. The Mavic 3 Pro offers a major change. Here’s what it has:
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20MP 24mm Wide Hasselblad Camera with 4/3" Sensor
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48MP 70mm Medium Telephoto Camera with 1/1.3" Sensor
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12MP 166mm Telephoto Camera with 1/2" Sensor
The Hasselblad wide camera is still the star, and the 166mm telephoto lens is still around for those who did benefit from it. The brand-new 70mm promises to bring even better image quality than the previous telephoto option, and is a much more usable, medium telephoto focal length, encouraging to see and quite handy.
The wide camera is going to provide your key recording specs, with 5.1K up to 50 fps and 4K up too 120 fps. Those tele cameras can do some serious work with 4K at up to 60 fps. The medium tele even brings 10-bit to the table with HEVC.
As for the top video quality for that, once again you’ll want to look at the Cine model. This adds ProRes recording to all the cameras and comes with a 1TB SSD to handle the massive files.
We hope to have a video review shortly to show off the Mavic 3 Pro and the Inspire 3. Stay tuned and be sure to ask any questions in the Comments section.
Teenage Engineering enters microphone space with sleek CM-15 Field
Teenage Engineering has always delivered fun and exciting gear for audio geeks. Its quirky equipment is loved by musicians and creatives for its unique designs and functions, and it doesn’t hurt that they are often of the highest quality. The brand is continuing to develop its sleek and compact Field system with its first high-end microphone: the CM-15 Field.
This is a tiny microphone and shares a design language and size with the TX-6 Mixer. Honestly, it would look good on nearly any desk and feels like it belongs in a space next to an OP-1 Field and MacBook Pro, with its aluminum housing. That’s not the whole point of the CM-15, though―the point is still to capture high-quality audio in nearly every situation.
Packing a 1" large-diaphragm capsule, this mic could easily find itself recording instruments, vocals, podcasts, and more without much worry. It can accomplish this by offering a mini-XLR output, dual mono mini-jack (3.5mm) line output, and USB-C output that can be used individually or simultaneously.
A supercardioid polar pattern allows for focused recordings, which should help if you plan on bringing it on the road with you.
Like the rest of the Field products, it is designed to be portable and features a battery that will run the device for 10 hours. It can charge or be powered via that USB-C port, but can also be powered by 48V phantom power via the mini-XLR connection.
This is an impressive upgrade from the folks at Teenage Engineering, with an impressive price point. However, for its portability, feature set, and compatibility with the Field system, the CM-15 just might be worth it.
Photography gear you might have missed
There were more releases of photography products over the past couple of weeks that might have gotten lost in the madness of NAB.
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Canon showed off a monster RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM Lens, an ultra-premium super telephoto with an impressively fast maximum aperture.
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Nikon revealed a Power Zoom lens for its APS-C Z Series cameras: the NIKKOR Z DX 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR.
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Ricoh followed up Leica’s monochrome announcement with its own: the Pentax K-3 II Monochrome DSLR.
In other news…
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Angelbird released its first CFexpress Type A gear, including a 1TB card that brings massive storage capacity and fast speeds to a price point that is dramatically lower than anything we have seen before.
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We did a quick hands-on review of the Sonos Era 100 and 300 Smart Speakers.
Check back next week for more news, when we’ll bring you the latest and greatest reviews and announcements.
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